Government | People | Design | Technology

Month: July 2012

Much of today’s discussion around government innovation occurs in the context of the following:

a designated role or department

open data

open source software

crowdsourcing ideas

challenges

hackathons

social media

startups or technology in general

a designated role or department speaking to other government employees about all or any of the above

While the above, when implemented successfully and sustainably, are great examples of how government is leveraging new thinking to implement better government, there’s a general missed opportunity amongst civic innovation leaders related to fostering a system-wide culture of innovation.

You don’t have to be an organizational expert, technology guru, chief innovation officer or work for NASA to win a gold medal in fostering civic innovation. (You definitely don’t even need a study or innovation score.)

Simply put, innovation is the ability to evaluate antiquated processes, rethink and execute a more efficient way of doing them. Often, the greatest innovations lie in simply not doing something anymore.

For those wanting to create a culture of government-wide innovation, here’s a simple plan:

create an “Innovation@” series

spotlight an agency each month (ideally hosted at the respective agency)

invite all government employees (and press) to attend

begin with a 10-minute question-and-answer session between the agency/department head and senior-level government leader

have designated agency employees give 5-minute presentations on how they created more efficient processes or stopped doing something (this does not include the agency/department head or the senior-level government leader)

end with an open question and answer session

do this every month

do this forever

By implementing an “Innovation@” series, you create a perpetual system-wide culture of sharing, learning, celebrating and uniting all public workers in believing they can innovate and have a sense of pride in doing so.

In the process, you’ll learn and do more for government innovation than you ever imagined.

Today, I had the opportunity to attend Code for Oakland 2012 and, as always with events like this, walked away inspired by the work of good friends and the enthusiasm of citizens and public servants wanting to do more for their communities. Big kudos to all involved engaging, organizing and sponsoring a great event in a great city.

Code for Oakland will be held July 21 at the Kaiser Center in Oakland, Ca. Steve Spiker, OpenOakland Brigade Captain and Director of Research & Technology for Urban Strategies Council, discusses Oakland’s open data progress and what attendees can expect from the event.

#one4one is the latest Twitter meme making the rounds encouraging digital influencers to “name someone whose identity has a radically different trait as their One. If you’re a dude, name a woman. If you’re white, name a person of color. If you’re straight, name an LGBTQ person.”